Many industries and leisure activities can be adversely affected by cheating among the participants. In free market economies, monopolies and cartels have been outlawed because collusion allows pricing to be coordinated among suppliers to the detriment of consumers. Examples of collusion that adversely affects the fairness of games and leisure activities include point shaving in sporting events and collusionary practices among online poker players.
Poker is a game ripe with opportunities to collude because it includes an element of chance. In particular the currently popular Texas Hold-em variant of poker lends itself to scenarios in which collusion between players is a rewarding strategy. Colluders can identify who amongst them has the best hand and play off each other to artificially inflate a pot against a non-colluding player. Additionally, the colluders have knowledge about what possible hands they can form, and what hands others can and cannot form. Moreover, colluders can minimize their losses by knowing better when to get out of a game that cannot be won.
The online variant of poker provides a significantly different challenge to collusion detection than traditional table poker because of the lack of physical contact between players and the presence of communications tools such as phones, instant messaging etc. Most poker collusion relies on the passing of what should be privileged information between players, such as indicating the strength of one's hand to a fellow player at the table.
Maintaining secure, fair games in online gaming is a difficult and complicated issue for online gaming firms. Although there are many ways to unfairly play the games, one of the biggest problems is collaboration among players in non-collaborative games (such as poker). Generally, firms that host online play environments rely on two primary forms of collusionary play detection, including: (1) user reporting; and (2) rules-based systems for detecting anomalies.
User reporting detection relies on users (players in the games) to report suspicious activity to the online gaming firm which they subsequently investigate. The outcomes of these investigations can involve the suspension or dismissal of a player who has been found guilty of cheating. Utilizing rules-based systems for detecting play anomalies involves having an expert game player (whatever the game may be) develop rules that most players will adhere to when playing (logical play). When these rules are consistently bent or broken by a player an investigation is triggered into the player's actions. As in the user reporting case, investigations can lead to suspension or dismissal for the offending player.
Both of the above-identified forms of unfair play detection have major weaknesses. With respect to user reporting, the reliance on less experienced users to report suspicious behavior may result in a large number of false detections of collusionary play. Online gaming users may not play with colluding players long enough to note the collaboration going on, and therefore collusionary play may never be submitted for investigation. Since some of these online games involve play where not all of the game's information is represented to user (but is stored by the online gaming firm), the online gaming user may not even have the requisite information to spot the collusionary play. Regarding rules-based systems, the reliance on a fixed set of rules can falsely detect a novice's bad play of the game as collusionary play. The fixed set of rules can be probed and techniques for circumventing detection by the rules can be developed by the collaborating players.
In view of the above, there exists a need for a system and method for detecting collusion in online gaming without the need to rely on any previously-established sets of rules or the need to rely on users with incomplete information for unfair play detection.
Additionally, there exists a need for a system and method for detecting collusion in online gaming via conditional behavior in order to maintain secure, fair games in the online gaming industry.
There further exists a need for a system and method for detecting collusion in online gaming including protecting online gaming users from unfair play in the form of collusion by detecting collusionary tactics through conditional behavior signatures.